WRESTLING: Shorters returns to lead Takedown Wrestling Camp

After another day of wrestling instruction, campers gathered for a photo opportunity. (The Oakland Press/MARVIN GOODWIN)

While his active wrestling days are long behind him, Coach Darwin Shorters still isn't adverse to mixing it up on the wrestling mats.

That's what he did at the Takedown Wrestling Camp in the Bill Willson wrestling room recently at Pontiac High School, applying the hands-on approach to his method of instruction.

But at 41 years old, he knew his limitations when it came to grappling. "You got any oxygen?" he queried after a brief session with one of the campers.

Indeed, Shorters was winded and sweating in the hot atmosphere of the wrestling room as he occasionally mixed it up with youngsters more than half his age.

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Shorters, a wrestling coach at St. Johns High School in South Carolina and a former coach at Central and Northern High Schools, came at the bequest of Adam Polk, head wrestling coach at Pontiac High. He was the guest instructor at the camp, which attracted some 50 youngsters, including some high school wrestlers from Avondale, Rochester and Pontiac.

"It's very nostalgic for me because I was born and raised in Pontiac, wrestled here, taught here, coached here for a long time," Shorters said. "It's good to see some of my former athletes that were very little grown up ... to see these guys develop into young men is very rewarding and gratifying for me."

For the youngsters, it was a three-day grind of physical activity, conditioning, wrestling and listening, under the watchful eye of a cadre of adult instructors, including Cisco McKinney, Tim Gomez, Kevin Davenport, Tyrone Logan, Nate Hansen and Georgio Ballentine.

"This is my passion, it comes from here," said Ballentine, thumping his heart area.

"You shouldn't be walking, run to your circle," commanded one instructor, while another urged, "use your speed, work something you learned today" to a pair of wrestlers in a simulated match.

But Shorters, familiar with the Michigan style of wrestling, was in charge of them all, bringing his brand of instruction to the camp.

"We're just trying to give them a lot of different setups, attacks and finishes on takedowns and expose them to as many things as we can," said Shorters of the campers, some who came as far away as Wayne County, such as Kyle Borthwell of the Silverbacks Academy of Highland Park. Others came from Macomb County and Oakland County, including an Avondale group which included Brock Mathers, Brennan Kuhn and Kyle Gray.

The Maier brothers from Rochester, including Dillon and Nick, and younger brother Steven, a student at Reuther Junior High, also made their way to the camp.